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One Person, Two Ways of Being

The Nicene Creed states that the eternal Son of God “came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit.” This language raises a question about the what it means that the person of Jesus Christ “came down from heaven.” The development in the Chalcedonian Definition indicates that this one Son is “made known in two natures.” This language has been defended in recent years with respect to its biblical faithfulness and coherence by Stephen Wellum in God the Son Incarnate, Timothy Pawl in A Defense of Conciliar Christology, Oliver Crisp in God Incarnate, Divinity and Humanity, and The Word Enfleshed, Ian McFarland in The Word Made Flesh, Michael Wilkerson in Crowned with Glory and Honor: A Chalcedonian Christology, and others. In this paper, I offer additional analysis regarding the manner in which Jesus’s two natures “come together” or “concur” in one person, as the Chalcedonian Definition puts it. I argue that the Son, as a divine person, “came down from heaven” in that he became incarnate. However, the Son did not cease the activities belonging to his divine nature, and therefore he did not abandon divine omnipresence to “come down.” As Athanasius says, “For he was not enclosed in the body, nor was he in the body but not elsewhere. Nor while he moved that [body] was the universe left void of his activity and providence” (On the Incarnation, 17). My argument is that in the incarnation the eternal Son adds a human way of being to his divine existence, that this human way of being has integrity, and that this human way of being does not conflict with the Son’s divine nature because of God’s transcendence—God’s existence is non-contrastive with human existence (see Kathryn Tanner, God and Creation).

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Recent Publications

The Spirit and Renewal (Part 1): Definitive & Progressive Sanctification - Sherif Fahim

'New Creation' in Paul - Sherif Fahim

Justification, Sanctification, and Union with Christ: Fresh Insights from Calvin, Westminster, and Walter Marshall - Sherif Fahim

Death in Second-Century Christian Thought The Meaning of Death in Earliest Christianity - Jeremiah Mutie

The Quest for Early Church Historiography From Ferdinand C. Baur to Bart D. Ehrman and Beyond - Jeremiah Mutie

The Book of the Twelve - David Fuller

Early Witnesses to the Syriac Text of Acts 15 with an Investigation into the Text of Acts 15 in the Didascalia Apostolorum and with and Appendix on the Western/Jacobite Peshitta Manuscript Tradition for Acts - Daniel McConaughy

The Star and the Magi in Jacob of Serugh and the Early Syriac Tradition - Daniel McConaughy

Saved by Grace through Faith or Saved by Decree? A Biblical and Theological Critique of Calvinist Soteriology - Geoffrey Robinson

The Rhetoric of Matthean “Small Faith” - Christopher Seglenieks

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